Simpson was acquitted. His defense team turned the tables to portray law enforcement as the culprit and Simpson as the victim. They argued, without a shred of direct evidence, that all of the incriminating forensic evidence was either planted by police officers who were out to get Simpson or mishandled by bumbling investigators.

This week, it was Trump preemptively asserting the O.J. Defense. By Tuesday morning, one of Trump’s lawyers, Christina Bobb, was crying foul, suggesting that the FBI had planted evidence. Bobb, who was present during the search and presumably had some information about what documents had been seized by the FBI, took to the airways to proclaim that “there is no security that something wasn’t planted.” Trump himself doubled down: “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’” Shortly thereafter, several of Trump’s high-profile supporters joined the chorus.

Preemptively invoking the O.J. Defense is more than a little telling. It strongly suggests consciousness of guilt.

You don’t claim, without a shred of evidence, that law enforcement planted documents during a search and seizure unless you believe that they found something incriminating. If you believe that the evidence seized was exculpatory or merely innocuous, you don’t cast doubt on it. Just the opposite. You use the evidence to your advantage. You talk about birthday cards, personal notes to your family, copies of newspaper clippings and the like. Then you bide your time until you can say “I told you so.”